


Co-Sleeping Seduction

by elephantfootprints



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Attempted Seduction, Co-Sleeping, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Sharing a Bed, Unusual seduction method, slightly cracky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-11
Updated: 2014-01-11
Packaged: 2018-01-08 07:01:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1129709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elephantfootprints/pseuds/elephantfootprints
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock wants to have sex with John. Logically all he needs to do is to get them into a bed together and the rest will follow naturally. No talking needed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Co-Sleeping Seduction

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Holesinthesky commenting that her experiences of bed sharing between friends was rarely as fraught with sexual tension as fanfic had lead her to believe.

"They didn't have any singles left," John said, handing Sherlock a room key in exchange for his bag. "And only one double. There must be something on, a wedding or something. It’s hardly tourist season. We'll have to bunk in together, it's too late to try somewhere else."

"Fine," Sherlock said dismissively, giving no sign how this pleased him. He stalked decisively towards their room.

Sherlock wanted to have sex with John. Had wanted to for a while now. Some combination of near-constant close proximity, time spent sharing adrenaline fuelled experiences, and his excessive fondness for John had resulted in this strange and disconcerting desire. 

"Restaurant's closed," John said wistfully. "I don't suppose you brought any food?"

At first, Sherlock had found all this lusting a bit overwhelming. John would shoot someone and Sherlock would want to pin him against the nearest available wall and kiss him senseless. If John flirted with a woman in front of him, it was all Sherlock could do not to grab him and shove a leg between his thigh, sucking on his throat as he rutted against him. It had reached a point where John sitting on his chair in a dressing gown, reading the newspaper made Sherlock long to pull the newspaper aside, shove the robe up and straddle him. 

"There is a packet of crisps and a chocolate bar in my bag," Sherlock said. 

There were many reasons Sherlock didn't do these things. After shooting people with illegal firearms, they needed to focus on not getting arrested, or indeed, shot at in return. These days, if John was flirting with women, it tended to be on Sherlock's orders to obtain information, and possessively marking him would make it all rather less effective. And of course, John always seemed to get quite annoyed when Sherlock stole his newspaper while he was still reading it.

"Oh, ta," John said. "I'll take the crisps."

When it came down to it, though, the main reason Sherlock didn't try to have sex with John every time the mood struck him, was that he didn't think it would be taken well. It could, in fact, be quite disastrous for their partnership. It could make their living arrangements intolerable. It could ruin their friendship. This would be completely unacceptable.

"Have both," Sherlock said, opening the door to the room. "I'm not hungry."

Sherlock was fairly certain John wanted to sleep with him as well, but he knew it would only happen if Sherlock approached the situation with finesse. Aggressive sexual advances would make John defensive. Talking about such matters was obviously useless. John wouldn't yet be comfortable in verbalising his attraction and might get tangled trying to define or defend his sexuality. Not to mention John might think this would be an excuse to mock Sherlock's excellent and efficient 'married to my work' speech. And it would be an exercise in futility to hope that John might make the first move. If Sherlock's brilliant deductions and habit of draping on the furniture in dressing gowns hadn't forced John to pounce on him in a fit of desire so far, there wasn't really anything else Sherlock could do to spur him on. 

"Sherlock," John said, sounding fondly exasperated. "When's the last time you ate?"

The solution came to Sherlock a week ago, a flash of brilliance after overhearing a terribly dull anecdote about sharing a bed with an ex-girlfriend. Sharing a bed was an intimate experience, but not exclusive to those already sexually involved. Provided a clever enough situation requiring bed-sharing was found, there was no real reason for John to refuse. From there, the sex would follow quite naturally. The bed space being so strongly associated with sexual congress, the physical closeness would incite arousal, the vulnerability and lessened inhibitions in moments just before sleep and after waking would encourage giving in to hidden desires, and of course they would be wearing less clothes than usual, which would presumably help immensely.

"I had soup for lunch yesterday," Sherlock said, admiring the room. It was perfect. The bed was neither cramped nor excessively spacious, the decor quite masculine, no hints of overt romance found in floral arrangements or pink wallpaper, there was no couch or armchair to offer additional sleeping spaces and there was no stretches of empty floor to prompt John to offer to chivalrously give up the bed for Sherlock.

Logically, a new experience would be easier to undertake in a new location, for those who were sentimental about such things, as John undoubtedly was. It had been a simple matter of finding a suitably interesting case requiring at least one night out of London, booking out the entirety of the closest accommodations, and arriving too late to find somewhere else or arouse suspicion that would come from the lack of other guests.

John crouched down and rummaged through Sherlock's bag, thrusting the chocolate he found at Sherlock with a firm, "Eat."

Sherlock rolled his eyes but took the chocolate. They ate in silence, Sherlock ruminating on how the evening would unfold, John happy to sit in silence, believing Sherlock to already be engrossed in the case. As expected, John turned in first, stripping comfortably to pants and vest and tucking himself in with nothing more than a, "Goodnight", which Sherlock did not return, as it would reveal he was not as lost in thought as he pretended. 

Once John's breath had evened out, Sherlock gave him half-an-hour to settle into a deep sleep before stripping off and joining him. He wasn't particularly tired nor interested in sleeping, but acclimatising John's subconscious to his presence seemed an essential part of making John feel comfortable enough to act upon his sexual desires, and of course it increased the likelihood of physical contact in the form of unconscious spooning, snuggling and/or cuddling. Sherlock shuffled within easy touching distance, not game to intentionally entwine them for fear of disturbing John, and turned his mind to the case that had provided for him a reason for dragging John out here.

*

Sherlock woke slowly, expecting to find himself with an armful of army doctor, most likely with John's head a comforting weight on his chest, or possibly with his nose pressed into John's neck. It was rather a disappointment, therefore, to find that he woke in roughly the same position he fell asleep, with exactly the same amount of army doctor touching his person. Sherlock looked over to see John similarly unchanged by the night of co-sleeping, no limbs wandering over, no obvious erection to bring conversations around to sex, he wasn't turned towards Sherlock, suggesting unconscious desire, or curled away, allowing Sherlock the ease of staging some unconscious spooning. He just lay there, on his back, arm closest to Sherlock sitting above the covers, straight, relaxed and right in the way for Sherlock to put his head on John's chest, his other arm resting, tauntingly, above John's head. Sherlock let out an irritated growl and John's body stiffened as he woke.

"Sh'lock?" he mumbled. "Is everything okay?"

"Fine," Sherlock snapped. John stretched and sat up, turning to smile sleepily at Sherlock.

"Good morning," John said. His eyes swept over Sherlock sitting in bed next to him. "Did you actually sleep, then? I think a miracle of this magnitude needs to be celebrated with a big breakfast."

Sherlock wrinkled his nose. "Eat if you must. We have a big day ahead of us."

John ate heartily, ignoring Sherlock's intrusive staring, and shrugging off the lack of response to his questions. 

Sherlock was baffled. He ran over the data in his mind several times, unable to find what he had missed, what had caused his foolproof plan to fail. The bed had been of an intimate size, his measurements were accurate, the calculations contained no errors. The setting had been suitably scenic without being aggressively romantic. Both parties had been minimally clad. Sherlock had even managed to actually sleep for a few hours. The most likely outcome had been sex, and yet no sex had been had.

The scenario was recreated three times over the next two months, Sherlock even managing to find a case that kept them out of London for four nights, and somehow, despite the hours of intimacy, despite the lack of trousers and the addition of vaguely romantic settings, John and Sherlock had absolutely no sex. Clearly, something needed to change.

*

"Your bed's covered in what?" John asked, squinting tiredly up at the Sherlock shaped silhouette in his doorway, a week later.

"Sulphuric acid," Sherlock replied.

"And the sofa-" John said.

"Pig's blood," Sherlock finished, letting his voice grow irritable. It was hardly a complex concept. "The arm chairs are in pieces, the floor is covered in glass. Are you so concerned about sharing a bed with me you'd have me what? Go wake Mrs Hudson?"

"I'm not worried about sharing a bed with you," John said, impressively calm. "I'm worried about the state of our living room."

"Ah," Sherlock said. "So I can sleep here, then?"

John took a deep breath, let it out slowly and lifted the covers. "Get in, but we are having a serious discussion in the morning."

Sherlock crawled in beside him and settled as close to John as he could without arousing suspicion. John quickly fell back to sleep and Sherlock turned his mind to his experiment on draining blood. He didn't manage to fall asleep until the early hours of the morning, feeling annoyed and slightly concerned that John still didn't seem inclined to move into any intrusive or compromising positions in his sleep.

When they woke in the morning, Sherlock was distressed to find that John was not only not wrapped around him, no erection in sight, but he was also quite cross and inclined to lecture Sherlock on his 'dangerous disregard for safety', 'complete lack of respect for communal living areas', and being a 'massive inconsiderate pillock'.

John did reach out to squeeze Sherlock's upper arm during the rant about glass, and he grabbed Sherlock's chin to force eye-contact when extracting promises about keeping experiments out of the lounge room, which seemed a positive sign. 

It was hard to conclusively determine whether co-sleeping in the flat was significantly more likely to lead to sex than doing so in foreign locations, but it was a simple enough scenario to recreate, and one of the few avenues left, so Sherlock decided to keep trying.

*

The next time Sherlock shared a bed with John was nearly two weeks later, Sherlock having taken the time to manufacture an excuse that would not require damaging any part of the flat nor arouse John's suspicions. So complicated in fact, that John fell mostly asleep halfway through, staying awake only long enough to pull back the covers, giving Sherlock permission to join him. 

This time, after a night contemplating the various uses of muslin, Sherlock woke when he felt John shift beside him.

"Morning," John yawned, still maddeningly unaffected by Sherlock's presence in bed. "Tea?"

Sherlock tried to think of a response that would lead to sex, but when none came to mind he hummed an absent affirmative, and leapt out of bed.

The lack of sex was puzzling Sherlock. He had not accidentally angered John this time, and certainly the offer of tea seemed rather affectionate, so Sherlock was definitely on the right track, but he was missing some vital element. 

Two hours later, Sherlock took a sip of cold tea with great satisfaction, realising his foolish oversight. One night every few weeks was clearly not enough to shift John’s perspective of him from friend into lover, he needed to saturate John’s senses with him.

*

It was a flimsy excuse that got Sherlock into John’s bed the next night, a muttered comment about feathers and saucers and John sleepily pulled back the cover, letting Sherlock settle in beside him. Now that Sherlock no longer anticipated that he was likely to be having sex in the morning, he was able to more freely turn allow his mind to run over a cold case Lestrade had given him, rather than focussing on sleeping correcting beside John. It wasn’t much better, but it kept him somewhat occupied.

In the morning, Sherlock noted with satisfaction that John smiled at him with great fondness when offering tea. It was slow progress, but at least things were heading in the right direction.

After that, Sherlock gave up on the facade of needing a reason to sleep in John’s bed, and John seemed happy enough to go along with it. One evening he managed to convince John to sleep in his bed. It was definitely not a sensible plan, as Sherlock’s bedroom would undoubtedly subconsciously make John feel he was not in control, which was not ideal if Sherlock wanted John to initiate sex with him, but he was sick of sleeping in John’s room. He had never slept so much in his life, and it was _boring_. Even when he wasn’t sleeping, Sherlock was bored. Every night he was losing valuable hours of productivity and he couldn’t stand it.

Sleeping in his own bed didn’t help at all, and so they returned to John’s the next night.

*

“Sherlock,” John said tentatively, one evening, when they were tucked in bed ready to share a bed for the nineteenth time.

“Mmm?” Sherlock hummed back, already feeling boredom creeping in. With any luck, John would say something he could ruminate on, something to distract him for a while at least.

“I just wanted to say I’m glad I could help,” John said.

Help? Help with what? What could John possibly be talking about? Sherlock looked at John curiously, and John made some less than helpful gestures at the bed.

“Insomnia’s hard,” John said gently. “And I don’t know why this would help, but I’m glad it has.”

“You think I’m here because I want to sleep with you?” Sherlock asked incredulously. “I’m here because I want to _sleep_ with you.”

“Oh, right,” John said. He frowned. “Nope, still confused. What the hell are you on about?”

  “Sex!” Sherlock said. “I am trying to seduce you.”  

“By sleeping next to me for eight hours and then buggering off in the morning?” John asked, his confused tone starting to be coloured by amusement.

 “Well nothing else was working,” Sherlock said sulkily.

“You didn’t think maybe bringing it in a way that I could understand might be the better approach?” John said, smirking slightly. 

“Of course not,” Sherlock said. He floundered slightly as he tried to recall the indisputable reasons why conversation would not have lead to sex, his flawless logic failing him. Fortunately he was spared having to explain as John was pulling him into a kiss.

*

“Right, well, I’m off to bed, then,” Sherlock said, moving to leave as soon as his heart rate had evened and he had caught his breath. John’s hand closed around his wrist, halting the movement.

“What?” John asked, sitting up. “You’re _in_ bed right now.”

“I meant _my_ bed,” Sherlock clarified. “We’ve had sex, which was the point of the whole co-sleeping endeavour, and now that it’s been successful, I see no point in continuing to share a bed.”

“Oh,” John said. Sherlock turned to look at him.

“Is co-sleeping an essential part of the experience for you?” Sherlock asked. 

“Um, no, it’s fine,” John said, feeling disappointment rise through the haze of satisfaction. 

“Excellent,” Sherlock said. “I might be back in the morning for sex, if that’s acceptable.”

“Yeah,” John said, giving a relieved grin. “No problem.”

“Good,” Sherlock said. “Well, goodnight. We’ll discuss where future encounters occur in the morning.”

Sherlock left and John collapsed back on the bed, laughing and grinning.


End file.
